Workers won't be worse off, Abbott says

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has given a "guarantee" that workers' pay and conditions will be safe under a coalition government, as Labor accused the coalition of hiding its workplace policy.

The coalition is reportedly planning to delay any changes to the Fair Work Act until a second term in government.

In its first term, the Productivity Commission would be asked to review the Fair Work Act and the coalition would then seek a mandate for changes at the 2016 election, The Australian newspaper said on Friday.

The Howard government's defeat in 2007 was in large part due to the unpopular Work Choices laws, which had not been announced as policy before an election.

Mr Abbott declined to comment on the policy on Friday but said the coalition was committed to cracking down on union corruption through the Australian Building and Construction Commission and a new "registered organisations" commission.

"I can also guarantee that the pay and conditions of Australian workers will be safe under the coalition," he told reporters in Brisbane.

Mr Abbott previously has said that workplace law reform was needed to address "productivity, militancy and flexibility" and that the Productivity Commission was the right body to review existing laws.

But in the meantime the coalition would "work within the existing framework", he says in the Real Solutions document released in January.

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten said if Mr Abbott believed there was a problem he would detail his IR policy now.

"If you think there is a workplace relations fire going on, to say, `We are not going to call the fire brigade for another three and a half years' is a remarkable backflip," he told reporters in Hobart on Friday.

"I think, though, people don't trust the opposition on this."

Mr Shorten described it as "Mr Abbott's Tootsie strategy"", referring to the 1982 movie in which an unemployed actor disguises himself as a woman to get a soap opera role.

He said Mr Abbott was promising business there would be tough action while telling workers there was nothing to worry about.

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